1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to on-line advertising and, more specifically, to targeted on-line promotions offered through a computer network.
2. Description of the Related Art
As technology advances and computers become a staple item in every household, the volume of the e-commerce increases significantly. More merchants are moving their businesses to Internet based e-commerce. Consequently, the competition for consumers' attention has become fierce on the Internet and consumers are flooded with advertisements and not-so-welcome pop-up windows that have nothing but advertisements.
The return of these advertisements is generally low, because it is difficult for a merchant to direct an ad to a specific group of consumers. Often the ad is displayed to all consumers who visit a particular website, and these consumers may or may not fit the demographic group in which the merchant is interested. A similar situation happens with an opt-in window with a list of products, where a consumer can select a product about which he would like to receive more information. Generally, an opt-in window with a list of similar products are shown to every consumer who visits a website, whether or not the consumer belongs to a group to which the merchant of a product is targeting.
Besides the advertisements having a low return, merchants are charged at a flat fee that may be dependent on the popularity of a particular website. The fee does not reflect the quality of user data the website collects.
Therefore, there is a need for an option in the advertising system that targets consumers selectively and that charges advertisers based on a measure of success.